>As usual, I find your postings informative and interesting. Thanks.
>However, I don't see why the existence of a fish species which has most of
>its junk DNA removed justifies your conclusion. You write:
>
>>> Obviously if one complex organism doesn't need the stuff, then it can't
>have a very important function. <<
>
>If we were to apply this reasoning to cheetahs we could conclude that
>allele heterogeneity "can't have a very important function." But we know
>better.
As far as I know the fish in question is quite robust. I just got in the
original article today so I will check on it. Cheetahs are not robuts
precisely because they have so few of them left. No species has been saved
from extinction if the number of individuals drops below 50. Cheetahs are
not too far from this limit. I think that there is a difference between
the two cases in that the cheetah has gone through a population bottleneck
and the fish hasn't as far as I know. A bottle neck would not cause the
deletion of the junk.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm